Live dashboard
Ballarat
The first place-based pilot, the Ballarat Civility Exchange, brings community reflections and emerging patterns into a live public dashboard.
Open the Ballarat dashboard →
A National Initiative · Launched Ballarat, February 2026
Reimagining a
Civil Australia
Strengthening civility, trust and the capability to engage constructively across difference; launched in Ballarat and contributing to the development of national civic infrastructure.
Open the National Civility Dashboard →Why this matters
The national context, and the challenge we are addressing.
Australia is navigating rising distrust, polarisation and social fragmentation, alongside increasing pressure on the everyday relationships that hold communities together.
These pressures are not evenly distributed. They are felt most sharply in place, in schools, workplaces, neighbourhoods, councils and community organisations, where people still need to make decisions, care for one another and act together across difference.
Reimagining a Civil Australia responds with a practical question: what does it take to keep people in relationship across difference, at scale, and over time?
Our position
Civility is a leadership capability and civic infrastructure.
Personal capability without shared infrastructure burns people out. Infrastructure without capability sits empty. Held together, they make constructive engagement possible.
As a capability
What people practise
- 1Listen
Staying present to views we do not share.
- 2Disagree
Holding difference without severing relationship.
- 3Repair
Returning after rupture, rather than withdrawing.
- 4Act
Moving from conversation to shared commitment.
As infrastructure
What holds it up
- Places
Libraries, halls, schools, sporting clubs, main streets.
- Practices
Convening, facilitation, deliberation, local ritual.
- Institutions
Councils, community organisations, funders, policy.
Which leads to
Communities that can disagree well, decide together and stay in relationship; over years, not moments.
How change happens
A theory of change carried by three connected practices.
Each practice is incomplete on its own. Learning without action drifts into abstraction; action without learning repeats mistakes; neither holds at scale unless the surrounding conditions shift with them.
01
LearningLearning across the system
Building shared language, evidence and reflection across sectors, so different actors can see the same picture and act on it.
02
ActingActing in place
Place-based pilots that translate national ambition into local practice: anchored in community leadership and lived experience.
03
InfluencingInfluencing the conditions
Working on policy, investment and coordination, the structural conditions that determine whether civility can be sustained at scale.
What the Coalition learned
Reflections and a case study from the Coalition’s first phase.
Across its first phase the Coalition explored four framings of civility and identified four enabling conditions: capacity, capability, trust and belonging. That work was documented independently by Paper Giant, whose reflection and case study sit alongside this site as the primary reading on what the work required, what it produced and what it revealed.
Paper Giant · Reflection
The conditions for civility: what a national coalition learned
Paper Giant's public reflection on the enabling conditions the Coalition surfaced across its first phase of convenings.
Read the reflection →Paper Giant · Case studyDesigning and holding the Civility Coalition's first phase
A project case study on how the first phase was designed, facilitated and held across very different organisations.
Read the case study →From learning to practice
Place-based work in Ballarat, Tasmania and Mparntwe / Alice Springs.
Each community brings its own history, tensions and leadership. Together the pilots translate national learning into practice, and feed local insight back into the national picture.
In progress
Tasmania
A place-based civility and community resilience process exploring how local leadership, connection and trust can support communities navigating change.
Resources comingIn development
Mparntwe / Alice Springs
A pilot in development, designed with local leadership in one of Australia's most complex and important civic contexts.
Resources coming
Featured pilot
The first live place-based dashboard
The Ballarat Civility Exchange makes visible how civility is being experienced in place: surfacing experiences and patterns associated with trust, connection and civility, and where small civic practices may help strengthen connection.
The public dashboard is designed to be revisited: as the pilot deepens, new reflections, patterns and experiments will be added.
Emerging national priorities
Three open questions the country has to answer together.
These are not programs. They are the shared conditions that keep surfacing across the Coalition and the place-based pilots, the work no single organisation can carry alone.
01
Measurement and learning
How do we know whether civility is strengthening or eroding?
Shared ways of tracking what builds or depletes civility, so pilots, funders and policymakers read the same signal.
02
Sharing and coordination
Who connects the many actors already doing this work?
Connective tissue between organisations, so effort compounds instead of duplicating across sectors and places.
03
Capital and governance
What sustains civic infrastructure beyond a project cycle?
Funding structures and governance arrangements built for decades of stewardship rather than short grant horizons.
Contributing to national policy
From shared learning to collective action.
The Royal Commission process is one example of the initiative moving from shared frameworks to a joint contribution to national policy. The joint submission was endorsed by six participating organisations, not the Coalition as a whole. The process was supported by the Scanlon Foundation and facilitated by Tanck, with the independence of each participating organisation preserved.
A collective contribution to strengthening Australia's social cohesion
A joint submission endorsed by six participating organisations: Ballarat Foundation, Collaboration for Impact, The Ethics Centre, Global Access Partners, Welcoming Australia and the Menzies Leadership Foundation (Convenor): modelling the very capacity it argues for: different organisations holding a shared contribution across difference.
Read the joint submissionCatalysing a collective contribution, the Foundation's contribution
The Menzies Leadership Foundation's own submission, describing the design choices behind catalysing a collective contribution and the conditions that made it possible.
Read the Foundation submissionKnowledge hub
All access, in one place.
Dashboards, Coalition reflections, submissions and place-based materials; hover or tap a tile to see more.
Live dashboard · National
National Civility Dashboard
The living national view of the initiative.
Where the work is happening, what it is producing and how to explore it; updated as new pilots, reflections and data come online.
Open dashboard
Live dashboard · Place
Ballarat Civility Exchange
The first place-based public dashboard.
Community reflections, emerging patterns and early insights from Ballarat; designed to be revisited as the pilot deepens.
Open dashboard
Paper Giant · Reflection
The conditions for civility
What a national coalition learned.
Paper Giant's public reflection on the enabling conditions surfaced across the Coalition's first phase of convenings.
Read the reflection
Paper Giant · Case study
Designing the first phase
How the Coalition was designed and held.
A case study on the facilitation, structure and tensions of holding very different organisations in one shared process.
Read the case study
Submission · Joint
A collective contribution to social cohesion
Joint submission endorsed by six organisations.
The joint submission to the Royal Commission process, endorsed by six participating organisations and supported by the Scanlon Foundation with facilitation by Tanck.
Read the submission
Submission · Foundation
Catalysing a collective contribution
The Foundation's own contribution.
The Menzies Leadership Foundation's account of the design choices behind catalysing a collective contribution.
Read the submission
Convening in progress
Tasmania
Public materials from the Tasmanian civility and community resilience process, published as the work matures.
In development
Early design
Mparntwe / Alice Springs
Materials from the developing Alice Springs pilot, published in partnership with local leadership.
In development
The next phase
Where the work goes from here.
The next phase focuses on continuity: supporting the communities already doing the work, growing the knowledge base, and exploring with Coalition members how shared learning and emerging priorities might inform future collective work.
01
Continued support for community partners
Sustained backing for Ballarat, Tasmania and Mparntwe / Alice Springs as they deepen their place-based work.
02
Developing the dashboards and knowledge base
Growing the National Civility Dashboard and the Ballarat dashboard, and adding new place resources as the work matures.
03
A possible public convening
A national moment to share what has been learned is one option under consideration, rather than a confirmed event.
04
Exploring the Coalition's next phase
Coalition members will be invited to consider how the shared learning, relationships and emerging priorities might inform future collective work.
Partners & participation
The people and organisations holding this work.
The initiative is held by a coalition of organisations contributing place, research, practice and stewardship. Each partner brings a distinct mandate; together they hold the conditions for collective work.
Coalition members
The fourteen organisations holding the Coalition’s shared work and contributing to its collective outputs.
Garden State Foundation
Get involved
An invitation to engage
If your organisation, community or work touches these questions, we would like to hear from you, as a partner, contributor, or fellow-traveller in the next phase.